CHECKING CREATIVITY: Machines, Media and Mathematics in Early Computer, Serial and Conceptual Art

Around 1960 digitalisation and computers started to spread through American society and in their wake came a reappraisal of machines: from a production method to a means of innovation. This art historical case study aims to show that mathematical machines were used in early computer, serial and conceptual art not only to explore their aesthetic potential and the media involved. Machines in art of the period also conjured the interplay of the human and machine in creative processes and thus examined creativity itself within human-machine networks. Comparison of these art forms de-livers a surprising insight: although one can assume for all three art movements affinity for the idea and thinking, one encounters ambivalence and criticism concerning logical machines and their cre-ative potential. Paradoxically put, with mathematical machines and critical algorithmic practices, some artists turned against a kind of “machine thinking”.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Michael Rottmann

Conference

Publication date: May 2018

Publication date (Print): May 2018

Pages: 1-10

Affiliations

[1 ] Academy of Art and Design Basel

FHNW – Institute of Experimental De-sign and Media Cultures (IXDM)

Freilager-Platz 1, CH-4002 Basel

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVAC18.2

SO-VID: ac0eb96b-4fde-42bb-b819-56704bc0f33d

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Politics of the Machines - Art and After

Conference acronym: EVA Copenhagen

Conference number: 7

Conference location: Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark

Conference date: 15 - 17 May 2018

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Digital arts and culture

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVAC18.2

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

References

L Alloway 1966 Introduction In: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Systemic Painting, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York 11 20
Anonymous 1957 Definition of “intelligence” In: Merriam-Webster, Dictionary of the English Language 1: A-M 2nd ed unabridged The Riverside Press Cambridge, MA
M Beardsley 1965 On the Creation of Art The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 23 3 291 304
R Bowman 1979 Interview with LeWitt, S. VHS-Video Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
A Broeckmann 2016 Machine Art in the Twentieth Century The MIT Press London, Cambridge, MA
S Buchmann 2007a Denken gegen das Denken. Produktion, Technologie, Subjektivität bei Sol LeWitt, Yvonne Rainer und Hélio Oiticica b_books Berlin
S Buchmann 2007b Serielle Zeichnungen – Zum Entwurf der Wall Drawings von Sol LeWitt W. BuschO JehleC Meister Randgänge der Zeichnung, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München 303 321
J Cohen-Cole 2009 The Creative American. Cold War Salons, Science and the Cure for Modern Society Isis 100 2 219 262
J Coplans 1971 Don Judd. An Interview With John Coplans Artforum 9 10 40 50
B Glaser 1966 Questions to Stella and Judd Art-News 65 5 55 61
A Goldstein 2004 A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958-1968 MIT Press Cambridge/London
C Greenberg 1940/1986 Towards a Newer Laocoon J O’Brian Clement Greenberg. The Collected Essays and Criticism 1 Perceptions and Judgements 1939-1944, The University of Chicago Press Chicago/London 23 38
C Greenberg 1960/1986 Modernist Painting J O’Brian Clement Greenberg. The Collected Essays and Criticism 4 Modernism with a Vengeance 1957-1960, The University of Chicago Press Chicago/London 85 93
G Günther 1963 Die “zweite” Maschine G Günther Das Bewußtsein der Maschinen: Eine Metaphysik der Kybernetik Agis-Verlag Krefeld, Baden-Baden 179 203
S Guilbaut 1983 How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art. Abstract Expressionism University of Chicago Press Chicago
C Heibach 2013 Kreativität: Thesen zu einem mythischen Begriff C Mareis,C Windgätter, Long Lost Friends: Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Design-, Medien- und Wissenschaftsforschung Diaphanes Zürich 183 204
J Held 1972/1995 Minimal Art – Eine amerikanische Ideologie G Stemmrich, Minimal Art Eine kritische Retrospektive, Verlag der Kunst, Basel, Dresden 444 470
P Hultén, 1968 The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age New York Graphic Society Greenwich, CT
IBM 1962 Reference Manual: IBM 7090 Data Processing System IBM White Plains, NY
C Klütsch, 2007 Computergrafik: Ästhetische Experimente zwischen zwei Kulturen. Die Anfänge der Computerkunst in den 1960er Jahren Springer Verlag Wien/New York
S Krämer, 1988 Symbolische Maschinen. Die Idee der Formalisierung in geschichtlichem Abriß Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt
D Kuspit. 1975 Sol LeWitt. The Look of Thought Art in America LXIII/5 42 49
S LeWitt 1967 Paragraphs on Conceptual Art Artforum 5 10 79 83
S LeWitt 1969 Sentences on Conceptual Art Art-Language. The Journal of Conceptual Art 1/1 11–13
A Lütgens 2000 L’esprit de Tinguely Hatje Cantz Ostfildern-Ruit
C Mareis 2016 Angewandte Imagination und Kreativität um 1960. Eine Einführung C Mareis, Designing Thinking. Angewandte Imagination und Kreativität um 1960 Wilhelm Fink Verlag Paderborn 9 38
J McCarthyM. L Minsky,N RochesterC. E Shannon, 1955 A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence https://web.archive.org/web/20080930164306/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/dartmouth/dart-mouth.html 27 05 2018
M McLuhan 1964 Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man McGraw-Hill New York
D Mersch 2005 Imagination, Figuralität und Kreativität. Zur Frage der Bedingungen kultureller Produktivität Sic et Non. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Kultur im Netz 4 1 1–12
A Miller-Keller, 1995 Excerpts from a Correspondance, 1981-1983 A Zevi, Sol LeWitt. Critical Texts Libri di AEIUO Rom 102 119
A Müller-Alsbach, 2012 Das Medium der Zeichnung im Werk von Jean Tinguely Museum Tinguely Museum Tinguely Basel. Die Sammlung Kehrer Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 247 375
F Nake 1999 Bildgeschichten aus Zahlen und Zufall. Betrachtungen zur Computerkunst G JägerA Dress, Visualisierung in Mathematik, Technik und Kunst: Grundlagen und Anwendungen Vieweg Braunschweig/Wiesbaden 125 126
F Nake 2010 Paragraphs on Computer Art, Past and Present N Lambert, Cat 2010: Ideas Before Their Time: Connecting the Past and Present in Computer Art. Proceedings of CAT 2010 London 3 February 2010 Swinton: BCS.55 63
F Nake 2012 Construction and Intuition. Creativity in Early Computer Art J McCormack,M d’Inverno Computers and Creativity Springer Verlag Berlin 61 94
M Noll 1966 Human or Machine: a Subjective Comparison of Piet Mondrian’s “Composition with Lines” 1917 and a Computer-Generated Picture The Psychological Record Vol. 16 1 10
M Noll 1967 The Digital Computer as a Creative Medium IEEE Spectrum 4 10 89 95
P Norvell 2001 Interview mit Sol LeWitt A AlberroP Norvell Recording Conceptual Art. Early Interviews With Barry, Huebler, Kaltenbach, LeWitt, Morris, Oppenheim, Siegelaub, Smithson, Weiner by Patricia Norvell University of California Press Berkeley 112 123
E Pellegrini 2011 Computer Art: Ten Questions to Michael Noll. http://www.predella.it/archivio/index537c.html 13 09 2017
M Rottmann 2014 The Rise and Fall of Mathematics. How the Role of Mathematics Changed in Sol LeWitts Art Since the 1960s The Journal of Art Theory and Practice Special Issue Vision and Math 18 145 168
M Rottmann 2015 Donald Judd’s Arithmetics and Sol LeWitt’s Combinatorics. On the Relationship Between Visual and Mathematical in New York Art Around 1960 M Emmer Imagine Math 3: Between Culture and Mathematics Springer Verlag, Heidelberg New York, London, Dordrecht 85 98
M Rottmann 2016a »Is your ›imaginer‹ ready?« Intention, Kritik und Rezeption der visuellen Kultur der amerikanischen New Math C Mareis Designing Thinking. Angewandte Imagination und Kreativität um 1960 Wilhelm Fink Verlag Pader-born 119 148
M Rottmann 2016b Kalkulierte Innovationen. Zur Kritik der Systematisierung von Innovationsprozessen in Kunst und Design um 1960 im Spannungsverhältnis von Selbst, Medium und System, penned in process
M Schapiro 1978 »Order and Randomness in Abstract Painting« M Schapiro Selected Papers Vol. 2: Modern Art. 19th & 20th Centuries Braziller New York 233 261
S Singer 1992 Sol LeWitt: Drawings 1958-1992, Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster
R Smithson 1968/1996 A Museum of Language in The Vicinity of Art J Flam Robert Smithson: the Collected Writings University of California Press Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 78 94
M Spens 2007 Sol LeWitt: The mystic Conceptualist. http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/sol-lewitt-the-mystic-conceptualist 15 7 2010
V Tomas 1958 Creativity in Art The Philosophical Review 67 1 1 15
A Turing 1948/1969 Intelligent Machinery B MeltzerD Michie Machine Intelligence 5 Edinburgh University Press Edinburgh 3 23
A Turing 1950 Computing Machinery and Intelligence Mind, New Series 59/236 433 460
F Turner 2008 Romantic Automatism: Art, Technology, and Collaborative Labor in Cold War America Journal of Visual Culture 7/1 5 26
K Varnedoe 1998 Jackson Pollock Museum of Modern Art New York
H von Foerster 1972 Perception of the Future and the Future of Perception Instructional Science 1 1 31 43
H von Herrmann 2010 Künstliche Kunst. Abstraktion als Mimesis T BotheR Suter Prekäre Bilder Wilhelm Fink Verlag Mün-chen 225 245

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] L Alloway 1966 Introduction In: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Systemic Painting, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York 11 20

[2] Anonymous 1957 Definition of “intelligence” In: Merriam-Webster, Dictionary of the English Language 1: A-M 2nd ed unabridged The Riverside Press Cambridge, MA

[3] M Beardsley 1965 On the Creation of Art The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 23 3 291 304

[4] R Bowman 1979 Interview with LeWitt, S. VHS-Video Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

[5] A Broeckmann 2016 Machine Art in the Twentieth Century The MIT Press London, Cambridge, MA

[6] S Buchmann 2007a Denken gegen das Denken. Produktion, Technologie, Subjektivität bei Sol LeWitt, Yvonne Rainer und Hélio Oiticica b_books Berlin

[7] S Buchmann 2007b Serielle Zeichnungen – Zum Entwurf der Wall Drawings von Sol LeWitt W. BuschO JehleC Meister Randgänge der Zeichnung, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München 303 321

[8] J Cohen-Cole 2009 The Creative American. Cold War Salons, Science and the Cure for Modern Society Isis 100 2 219 262

[9] J Coplans 1971 Don Judd. An Interview With John Coplans Artforum 9 10 40 50

[10] B Glaser 1966 Questions to Stella and Judd Art-News 65 5 55 61

[11] A Goldstein 2004 A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958-1968 MIT Press Cambridge/London

[12] C Greenberg 1940/1986 Towards a Newer Laocoon J O’Brian Clement Greenberg. The Collected Essays and Criticism 1 Perceptions and Judgements 1939-1944, The University of Chicago Press Chicago/London 23 38

[13] C Greenberg 1960/1986 Modernist Painting J O’Brian Clement Greenberg. The Collected Essays and Criticism 4 Modernism with a Vengeance 1957-1960, The University of Chicago Press Chicago/London 85 93

[14] G Günther 1963 Die “zweite” Maschine G Günther Das Bewußtsein der Maschinen: Eine Metaphysik der Kybernetik Agis-Verlag Krefeld, Baden-Baden 179 203

[15] S Guilbaut 1983 How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art. Abstract Expressionism University of Chicago Press Chicago

[16] C Heibach 2013 Kreativität: Thesen zu einem mythischen Begriff C Mareis,C Windgätter, Long Lost Friends: Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Design-, Medien- und Wissenschaftsforschung Diaphanes Zürich 183 204

[17] J Held 1972/1995 Minimal Art – Eine amerikanische Ideologie G Stemmrich, Minimal Art Eine kritische Retrospektive, Verlag der Kunst, Basel, Dresden 444 470

[18] P Hultén, 1968 The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age New York Graphic Society Greenwich, CT

[19] IBM 1962 Reference Manual: IBM 7090 Data Processing System IBM White Plains, NY

[20] C Klütsch, 2007 Computergrafik: Ästhetische Experimente zwischen zwei Kulturen. Die Anfänge der Computerkunst in den 1960er Jahren Springer Verlag Wien/New York

[21] S Krämer, 1988 Symbolische Maschinen. Die Idee der Formalisierung in geschichtlichem Abriß Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt

[22] D Kuspit. 1975 Sol LeWitt. The Look of Thought Art in America LXIII/5 42 49

[23] S LeWitt 1967 Paragraphs on Conceptual Art Artforum 5 10 79 83

[24] S LeWitt 1969 Sentences on Conceptual Art Art-Language. The Journal of Conceptual Art 1/1 11–13

[25] A Lütgens 2000 L’esprit de Tinguely Hatje Cantz Ostfildern-Ruit

[26] C Mareis 2016 Angewandte Imagination und Kreativität um 1960. Eine Einführung C Mareis, Designing Thinking. Angewandte Imagination und Kreativität um 1960 Wilhelm Fink Verlag Paderborn 9 38

[27] J McCarthyM. L Minsky,N RochesterC. E Shannon, 1955 A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence https://web.archive.org/web/20080930164306/http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/dartmouth/dart-mouth.html 27 05 2018

[28] M McLuhan 1964 Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man McGraw-Hill New York

[29] D Mersch 2005 Imagination, Figuralität und Kreativität. Zur Frage der Bedingungen kultureller Produktivität Sic et Non. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Kultur im Netz 4 1 1–12

[30] A Miller-Keller, 1995 Excerpts from a Correspondance, 1981-1983 A Zevi, Sol LeWitt. Critical Texts Libri di AEIUO Rom 102 119

[31] A Müller-Alsbach, 2012 Das Medium der Zeichnung im Werk von Jean Tinguely Museum Tinguely Museum Tinguely Basel. Die Sammlung Kehrer Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 247 375

[32] F Nake 1999 Bildgeschichten aus Zahlen und Zufall. Betrachtungen zur Computerkunst G JägerA Dress, Visualisierung in Mathematik, Technik und Kunst: Grundlagen und Anwendungen Vieweg Braunschweig/Wiesbaden 125 126

[33] F Nake 2010 Paragraphs on Computer Art, Past and Present N Lambert, Cat 2010: Ideas Before Their Time: Connecting the Past and Present in Computer Art. Proceedings of CAT 2010 London 3 February 2010 Swinton: BCS.55 63

[34] F Nake 2012 Construction and Intuition. Creativity in Early Computer Art J McCormack,M d’Inverno Computers and Creativity Springer Verlag Berlin 61 94

[35] M Noll 1966 Human or Machine: a Subjective Comparison of Piet Mondrian’s “Composition with Lines” 1917 and a Computer-Generated Picture The Psychological Record Vol. 16 1 10

[36] M Noll 1967 The Digital Computer as a Creative Medium IEEE Spectrum 4 10 89 95

[37] P Norvell 2001 Interview mit Sol LeWitt A AlberroP Norvell Recording Conceptual Art. Early Interviews With Barry, Huebler, Kaltenbach, LeWitt, Morris, Oppenheim, Siegelaub, Smithson, Weiner by Patricia Norvell University of California Press Berkeley 112 123

[38] E Pellegrini 2011 Computer Art: Ten Questions to Michael Noll. http://www.predella.it/archivio/index537c.html 13 09 2017

[39] M Rottmann 2014 The Rise and Fall of Mathematics. How the Role of Mathematics Changed in Sol LeWitts Art Since the 1960s The Journal of Art Theory and Practice Special Issue Vision and Math 18 145 168

[40] M Rottmann 2015 Donald Judd’s Arithmetics and Sol LeWitt’s Combinatorics. On the Relationship Between Visual and Mathematical in New York Art Around 1960 M Emmer Imagine Math 3: Between Culture and Mathematics Springer Verlag, Heidelberg New York, London, Dordrecht 85 98

[41] M Rottmann 2016a »Is your ›imaginer‹ ready?« Intention, Kritik und Rezeption der visuellen Kultur der amerikanischen New Math C Mareis Designing Thinking. Angewandte Imagination und Kreativität um 1960 Wilhelm Fink Verlag Pader-born 119 148

[42] M Rottmann 2016b Kalkulierte Innovationen. Zur Kritik der Systematisierung von Innovationsprozessen in Kunst und Design um 1960 im Spannungsverhältnis von Selbst, Medium und System, penned in process

[43] M Schapiro 1978 »Order and Randomness in Abstract Painting« M Schapiro Selected Papers Vol. 2: Modern Art. 19th & 20th Centuries Braziller New York 233 261

[44] S Singer 1992 Sol LeWitt: Drawings 1958-1992, Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster

[45] R Smithson 1968/1996 A Museum of Language in The Vicinity of Art J Flam Robert Smithson: the Collected Writings University of California Press Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 78 94

[46] M Spens 2007 Sol LeWitt: The mystic Conceptualist. http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/sol-lewitt-the-mystic-conceptualist 15 7 2010

[47] V Tomas 1958 Creativity in Art The Philosophical Review 67 1 1 15

[48] A Turing 1948/1969 Intelligent Machinery B MeltzerD Michie Machine Intelligence 5 Edinburgh University Press Edinburgh 3 23

[49] A Turing 1950 Computing Machinery and Intelligence Mind, New Series 59/236 433 460

[50] F Turner 2008 Romantic Automatism: Art, Technology, and Collaborative Labor in Cold War America Journal of Visual Culture 7/1 5 26

[51] K Varnedoe 1998 Jackson Pollock Museum of Modern Art New York

[52] H von Foerster 1972 Perception of the Future and the Future of Perception Instructional Science 1 1 31 43

[53] H von Herrmann 2010 Künstliche Kunst. Abstraktion als Mimesis T BotheR Suter Prekäre Bilder Wilhelm Fink Verlag Mün-chen 225 245

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